About

play / pause / play is an internet radio station and audio services company that exists to support the South Australian live music scene.

The music industry is inherently tied to radio, but that relationship isn't working in Adelaide.

Our major commercial stations import most of their content from interstate - especially their music playlists - and play barely any local music. We have some great community radio stations, but no cross-genre champion of the local music industry like Triple R in Melbourne or FBi in Sydney.

play / pause / play is a project to address this by establishing a new internet radio station that focuses on music relevant to South Australians. 100% Australian music with a big focus on new releases, artists based in Adelaide and artists performing here soon - whether they're playing at the Grace Emily, Thebarton Theatre or WOMADelaide.

A new way for radio

No hosts. No forced banter. No BS.

No Sheeran. No Tay-Tay. No Chisel [probably].

The play / pause / play radio stream focuses on new music from local artists and touring Aussie artists playing in Adelaide soon. Instead of hosts, listeners hear the voices of the artists themselves introducing the music played, along with gig guides for some of Adelaide’s favourite venues.

If Australian radio stations won't play Australian music, who will?

Reports over the past few months have shown that many commercial stations aren’t meeting their local content quotas - and those that are, are generally doing so by squeezing all their Aussie music in when no-one's listening.

During peak listening hours [6am-6pm Mon-Fri] less than 10% of the music played on some commercial stations is Australian.

That’s nowhere near enough.

Australian artists shouldn’t have to fight to be heard. Australians shouldn’t have to go searching in order to find locally-produced sounds.

Australian radio stations don't seem to want to play Australian music.

If they won't do it, we will.

360 degrees of services

On top of running the radio stream, we offer a wide range of services. Yes, we can run ads for your event, but we can also book local artists to perform, MC your event, perform 100% local music DJ mixes and live-stream and podcast your entire event, too.

About Luke Penman

My name is Luke and I'm running pretty much everything here - from the music scheduling and audio content creation to website design, social media, marketing and PR, and pretty much everything else*.

I've been kicking around the South Australian music scene for about 15 years. From all-ages shows in the beer garden of The Austral to studying at Music SA, dabbling in artist management, blogging and podcasting before winding up at community station Radio Adelaide.

I was there for five years as a volunteer and staff member, working in the music team and hosting the local music program, Local Noise. I interviewed hundreds of local artists on the weekly show before moving the program to the morning slot, where I produced and presented the three-hour show five days a week for 12 months.

I've also provided various services to organisations such as Music SA, APRA, the Beer & BBQ Festival and the UniSA Student Association, as well as the Cities of Adelaide, Unley and West Torrens, including booking artists, speaking on workshop panels, DJing and MCing events and more.

[*Pretty much everything except the artwork - that was done by the amazing Ant Candlish.]

FAQs

Are you paying artists for using their music?

Yes! The station is fully licensed by APRA and the PPCA. Every time an artist is played, they will get paid for it.

Will you broadcast on FM/DAB+?

I'd love to, but aside from costing tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in broadcasting equipment, there's literally no room on the FM spectrum in South Australia for new stations.

Where does your revenue come from?

Primarily, revenue will come from listeners - our Official Supporters. If you're enjoying the stream, become an Official Supporter today and help us keep broadcasting!

Aside from that, we're also working through grants and commercial partnerships to find enough funding to make this viable in the long-term.

Will you run advertising, then?

At the end of the day, this station will need to generate around $120,000 per year to cover music licensing, software and marketing, as well as one full-time wage to run the whole thing. We'd love to be able to completely fund the station from Supporters, but until we get to that point, we're open to advertising. Get in touch if you're interested.

I'd love to say yes, but at this stage there's way too much behind-the-scenes for me to work out how to coordinate that. Becoming an Official Supporter is the #1 way you can help support the station at this point, and make sure you sign up to the mailing list to stay informed.